COLUMBUS.

Judge Wildermuth's review of the Columbus Juvenile court situation, as made before the state charities conference, last evening, should have been heard by all Columbus people who are interested in children. This is true, not so much because the information contained was new, as because it was again presented in a manner to show the need of the establishment of a separate court. The police judge and the police officers have done much to meet the need, but the atmosphere of the police court, as the judge says, is not the atmosphere into which children should be taken.

JUVENILE COURTS.

One of the best features of the work of the state conference of charities and corrections is its earnest advocacy of intelligent, humane treatment of erring children. Even to a greater degree than in the case of adult criminals, the law should be

enforced against a child in the effort to reform him. Punishment must be regarded only as a means to correction, and the manner of its infliction has great influence upon the moulding of the child's character.

meanor.

Association with the criminal classes does not help toward the reformation of a child who has committed some misdeYet, under the system in force in many cities, such a child mingles with hardened, profligate men and women while awaiting his trial in police court. He sees more of the seamy side of life than any child ought to see and the experience often leads him into paths which he might have been taught to shun. The circumstances surrounding the enforcement of law in his case may turn a potential good citizen into a chronic law-breaker.

It is evident that the present system is wrong and harmful. In a few cities the juvenile courts, with their probation officers and their complete separation of undutiful children from real criminals, are proving very successful. Such an institution is a good investment for any city.

LOS ANGELES JUVENILE COURT COMMISSION SUGGESTS NEED OF SUITABLE DETENTION BUILDING.

The county of Los Angeles will soon have the finest detention home in the world. The juvenile commission has presented to the board of supervisors plans for the construction of the home, and a committee was appointed to co-operate with the committee from the juvenile court commission to call upon the city council and further the plans for the erection of the home. The following is the report the juvenile court commission presented to the board of supervisors:

"The juvenile court commission of this county desires briefly to present for your consideration the condition and pressing need for permanent provision for the children that come under the jurisdiction of the juvenile court of Los Angeles county. "Present arrangements so far as quarters are concerned are at best only temporary, but more than that are unsatisfactory from every point of view.

"We suggest to your honorable body that it be advisable to furnish a tract of land, not less than ten acres in extent, convenient to some car line and within the city limits; that suitable buildings on the cottage plan for the accommodation of at least sixty children be provided. The conditions demand immediate action.

"H. E. WASHBURN, Secretary."

The discussion of various sites was taken up, but no satisfactory conclusions were reached, and it was decided to refer the question to the city council. Judge Wilbur stated to the board that the juvenile home was a great saving to the county, and that an expenditure of at least $30,000 should be made for the erection of the home.

The juvenile commission hopes to secure a tract of land large enough to enable them to construct cottages to accommodate at least ten boys, besides a dining room and school. Judge Wilbur suggested that the boys could be instructed in the art of farming, if the tract of land purchased was large enough to permit.

ATLANTA JUVENILE COURT.

GOOD FRUITS OF JUVENILE REFORM. Councilman Key himself, when he introduced in council the measure establishing the probation system for young offenders against the law, hardly anticipated how rapidly the good results of this reform would become apparent.

It was an impressive scene presented at recorder's court yesterday when nineteen boys between the age of 8 and 14 years were lined up before Judge Broyles and in the presence of friends or parents, congratulated on the penitence and desire to reform they had shown and the charges against them wiped from the record.

The offenses charged were of a nature which could not be entirely overlooked, and yet the reformation which is the end of justice would not have attained if these boys of tender age had been sent to serve among criminals and to carry through life the odium of a term in prison.

As it is, they have shown the proper spirit and all concerned are happy at the practical workings of the system.

The probation plan is one of the wisest measures yet adopted by the city. The first fruits are more than gratifying, and the longer the system is in use the greater will be its beneficial results. Councilman Key, Probation Officer Gloer and all who

have contributed toward the adoption and operation of the measure are to be congratulated on the happy issue of their reform.

NEW JUVENILE WARD.

Chief Ball has asked for bids for the erection of the detention and juvenile wards at police headquarters which have been provided for by the police commission.

The announcement is greeted with the greatest possible satisfaction on the part of the people of the city, and particularly those who have been agitating the question of these reforms for so long a time.

The new juvenile ward is the most insistently demanded as the case is altogether different with juvenile offenders. Even though it be proven that they are guilty of the offense for which they are arrested, their ultimate reform and redemption is the real object ever kept in mind by the law. This discipline becomes worse than a farce when they are placed in close companionship and association with hardened criminals, from whom they learn more meanness in a day than the law can discipline out of them in a month. These children are entitled to a wholesome and uplifting environment. They are to be made to realize the majesty of the law and the necessity for observing it, without at the same time debasing them by association with veteran offenders.

The establishment of a system of juvenile reform has enlisted the earnest attention of the best citizens of Atlanta, and it is gratifying to them to realize that their efforts are at last about to bear some practical fruit.

TENEMENT STATISTICS IN NEW YORK.

An inquiry into the character of the population of certain tenement districts in New York city reveals the fact that the native American families are decreasing, the adult population becoming more and more distinctly foreign. Already the adults in nearly every family are of foreign birth.

Of the children in these tenements 50 per cent. are natives of this country, but many of them were born in crowded quarters of large cities. These children go to the public schools and are there taught by American teachers. Thus they are subjected to Americanizing influences while in school; since this is true of all the pupils attending those schools, the tendency is to make Americans of the children born in the tenement districts, notwithstanding the foreign influences to which they are exposed in their homes.

The tenement districts seem destined to remain for many years under foreign influence, notwithstanding the American nativity of a large percentage of the children and the education in public schools of these and also of the foreign-born children. The reason is that aliens arriving in this country find their way at the outset into the tenements. The American-born children drift away as they grow up, seeking better conditions elsewhere and leaving the tenements to the foreigners who are willing to remain in them.

New York is in a large degree a foreign city. It is the port through which nearly all the immigration into this country passes, and a large percentage of the arrivals stop there. They know but litle about the remainder of the country, and, finding work of one kind or another in New York, they remain there and become members of some one of the foreign colonies. This makes the assimilation of the alien population in New York city slow, and from time to time the suggestion has been made that these alien colonies should be broken up by the distribution of their population throughout the country.

The JUVENILE COURT RECORD is the official organ of and published by the Visitation and Aid Society and will deal with social problems in child-saving work and give an account of the workings of the Juvenile Court.

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THE MOTIVE OF THE JUVENILE COURT.

The Juvenile Court movements had its inception in the highest philanthropic motives. Its founders and its best friends since the beginning have had an eye single to the welfare of the child. They have been those who saw deeply into the subject of the making of men. They were able to analyze adult character and child character and discover the relation between the two. They perceived the effect of environment and the effect of heredity upon the development of the physical, mental and moral life of the child. Their conclusion though simple, yet in a way, a discovery, was that this child is a creature of circumstances, is at the mercy of others for weal or woe.

The conditions of city life, of life among the illy-favored members of the community they knew, and the conviction came that many children are far from getting a fair show toward becoming good men and women. These. do not get the sympathy, the example, the encouragement, the instillation of ideas which their plastic, impressionable natures absolutely need, and which if they received in proper measure would save them to good citizenship and from misery and crime.

Now then, it was to offset some of these evil conditions by filling in the missing elements of child life and offering "a chance" to the boy and girl who under oppression or misguidance went wrong that juvenile courts were established. The motive was a high one. It had a look forward to the good of society as well as of the child. It had a religious tone to it. It came from the heart. Natural, therefore, is the horror and indignation of these friends of the movement who see in various parts of the country attempts to degrade these courts from their high purpose. It is being done. The political corruptionist is the offender. The motive of his meddlings is, of course, his pocket-book. Nothing appears sacred to him, no not even a little child.

In Kansas City, Mo., the enemies of the juvenile court declared unconstitutional the law establishing it and forced a fight to be waged up to the State Supreme court where they were soundly defeated. But they continued their machinations and today it is said the workings of the court are tainted so poisonously with politics that it might just as well be out of existence.

The allegation is made that the judges of the County Court, who are in fact, the County Commissioners and in charge of the county's finances, are the mainspring of the opposition. By depriving the court of the necessary funds with which to conduct its work they are nullifying the usefulness of judge and probation officers. For example, instead of furnishing money to pay for the care of certain classes of children at institutions these judges force the court to set them free. The children mock t the farce and sink deeper in their wrong-doing.

Reports have it that the circuit court judges have appointed a man 60 years of age entirely unfit for the place. It appears to be a political appointment and will of course bear proper fruit. But what about the welfare of the neglected and unfortunate children over whom this court and its officials are supposed to act as a father! The children's friends dare not grow discouraged.

Out in Denver, Colorado, there is another phase of the same fight. The judge of the juvenile court, who has been hailed as "one of America's great educators," "one of the most remarkable men in the West," Benjamin B. Lindsey, stands in danger of defeat at the November election. As everybody interested in juvenile courts knows he was really elected in May last, having run on both Republican and Democratic tickets and having received 53,000 out of the 54,000 votes cast. But opponents of the Judge and his court, politicians, have begun suit to prove the illegality of the action of the convention that changed the date of the last November election to May 1904, (the time when Judge Lindsey was elected.) The court decision on the matter will not be given until after this November election and if affirmative, will nullify Judge Lindsey's election, "a consummation devoutly to be wished" according to the corruptionists who found they could not move to their purposes this man of backbone and decency.

It is a glorious fight, this one in Denver and while it looks as if Judge Lindsey must win still "you can never tell" in politics. As "Charities" well says:

"The fight, of course, is not won yet. It is a fight which means a good deal for the juvenile court movement throughout the country. But more than that, if the children of Denver are not to lose from the bench the friend to whom they owe that unique, humane, and enlightened statute, of Colorado, which provides that he who contributes to the delinquency of a child is himself delinquent and may be fined not more than one thousand dollars, or committed to jail for not more than one year, Judge Lindsey must be elected again in November."

(Concluded from page 5.)

SATURDAY MORNING'S SESSION.

In the courtroom on Saturday morning, counsel tables have been removed, chairs have been placed in the long courtroom, and it has the appearance of a schoolroom as far as possible. The probation officers are at the table provided in front of the boys. The Judge does not occupy the bench. He comes down among the boys at the table immediately in front of them.

At the opening of court Judge Lindsey generally proceeds to deliver a short "Saturday morning talk." It is made as spicy and interesting as possible. No effort is made to preach to the boys. Their duties as little citizens are impressed upon them. They are often told that they are among the best boys in Denver. Some of them have done things in the past that they despise as much as the Judge does.

These Saturday morning talks are generally upon some subject that is close to a boy's heart and respecting his own world, the discussion of which keeps him in his own atmosphere and does not try to lift him to a plane where he is not at home. For instance, a tattletale is called by every Denver boy a

"snitcher." Every boy knows that if he tells on one of his companions he is outlawed. Teachers often make a great mistake in compelling boys to tell on each other without considering the penalty to which the boy subjects himself in the world of "Boyville." It tends to make a boy a little sneak and gets him the reputation of being a "knocker," or a "sissy boy."

The subject of the Saturday morning talk may be "Snitching"; when to "snitch" and when not to "snitch." The boys are immediately interested. It is a common topic in Boyville. There is no trouble in getting their attention. There is no scraping of feet, uneasiness, and sliding about in the chairs, anxious to get out. They will listen long if one will only stay and talk to them. Under this title the boys learn, possibly for the first time, the duties of individuals toward each other and the state as citizens. The result of the Saturday morning talk is that there is a better understanding. If any one wants to handle boys he must understand them and they must understand him. This is too often not the case. The Judge has talked to the boys on the subject of "ditching." If they do not like a boy they make it disagreeable for him to run with the crowd, and when they do this they all say in Denver that he has been "ditched." "Cut it out" is a common expression among Denver boys. -Inter Ocean, Chicago.

hats, or what is left of them, to the kind matron. If hats were safe with her, why not babies? Yes, surely babies; and this baby with his rigid, solemn face felt it. He gave Mrs. Atkinson an appealing look that went straight to her heart. She gave the child a set of building blocks, taught him how to use them; and so in a quiet corner of the room he played, to all appearances, the first game of his life; and as he played a new light came into his face, the light of innocent baby joy. Nor is this baby boy the only one who has played his first innocent game in the Boys Club rooms. Boys who, in our Club rooms, insist on playing checkers with a billiard cue, and think croquet is something to eat, evidently never give their mothers very much trouble picking up building blocks and dominoes, which they had scattered over the house.

So while these two, Ragamuffins and "Rooster," enjoy their innocent games up here

in the pleasant Club rooms, little "mother" patiently waits down there at the foot of the stairway.

SUPT. J. F. ATKINSON.

ADAPTABILITY.

If there is one thing more than another about our Chicago Waif that challenges my admiration, it is his wonderful gift of adaptability. He can make a hair top mattress out of an iron grating over a "hot wheel" in the rear of some big heating plant and sleep "as sound as a log" all night-providing "de copper" don't "pinch" him. He can make a square meal out of a "redhot" and a slab of rye bread. He can sleep in "de alley" or on the lake front or in damp cellars or hallways and other unhealthy and unsanitary places and

take the baby with him, especially since the baby is lucky. enough to be a boy, and isn't the Chicago Boys' Club for all: such as he?

He is used to hard knocks. He owns an alley in this, the "busiest city in the world"-Newsboys' Alley. The policeman who is stationed there to preserve law and order, does so with the aid of a raw-hide whip. The Superintendents, stationed in the delivery rooms of some of the great daily papers to preserve peace among these little paper merchants, do so with the persuasion of a long whip. Such of these boys as are fortunate enough to have a father, know him by the blows received at his hands. So it is blows at home, kicks in the street, a whip at the delivery rooms, and that is the only argument he knows. Is it any wonder they pummel each others' heads on the slightest provocation, and sometimes forget to wait for the provocation

come through it all with strength enough left to sell more "newses" than any other "guy" in town.

Another characteristic of our little "Hooligan" is his Chicago way of doing things. He won't let a little thing like tending baby keep him from the Boys' Club rooms; he'll

Our one great object in organizing the Chicago Boys' Club was. to institute a new crusade among that classwhich, in the language of Charles Kingsley, "is damned from its birth." Blows and kicks and cuffs will never do it. The boys I want to be mothered. We master them, not through fear, nor by the policeman's club, but by a band of consecrated workers, the result of which shows that a more efficient power than that of the uplifted hand and the threatening rod rules the minds and molds the characters of these otherwise unhappy lads of the street who are dubbed by the scornful as "gutter snipes" and "alley rats."

Who can compute the importance of christianizing these hundreds and thousands of little wander

ers, who must otherwise become a peril to the state and a reproach to Christianity? While writing this little account, I can not help thinking of the scores and hundreds of poor little lambs who still wander in the wilderness of "Darkest Chicago" with bruised and weary feet.